Priority to German Patent Application No. 102 02 644.0, filed Jan. 23, 2002 and hereby incorporated by reference herein, is claimed.
The present invention relates to a method for attaching the elastic spring elements of a vibration absorber to a metallic mounting support, in particular of a vibration absorber that is to be placed in a steering wheel of a motor vehicle to a metal mounting plate or directly to the bottom of the steering wheel, the spring elements having the form of cylindrical pegs which are each provided with a bead featuring an annular groove and which snap into correspondingly designed openings in the metal mounting plate.
The attachment of vibration absorbers is accomplished via elastic spring elements which are connected to the vibrating mass and to the machine part to be damped in a very different way. The connection is to be designed such that the vibrating mass does not break off the machine part even in the case of larger vibrations. At the same time, the connection should be as simple as possible in its structural design and require only a small amount of material.
German Patent Application DE 39 25 761 A1 describes a vibration absorber for motor vehicle steering wheels where either the entire air-bag unit or else only the gas generator for inflating the air bag is used as the vibration absorber. The flexible attachment of the air-bag unit or of the gas generator to a support is accomplished by elastic means which are composed of a tubular part with a rivet or else a screw, which connects the vibration absorber mass to the support, being passed through the interior thereof. Such a connection of the vibrating mass and the support is difficult to accomplish and involves considerable problems when mounting the vibrating mass to the support.
A simpler design of the spring elements between the vibrating mass and the metal mounting plate is contained in the older German Patent Document DE 101 42 210.5. There, the spring elements are designed in the form of latching pegs which are pulled into correspondingly designed openings in the metal mounting plate under elastic preload. The insertion of the pegs into the openings provided in the metal plate constitutes a problem in terms of production.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method which allows easy mounting of the elastic spring elements in the openings of the metal support.
In a method of the species mentioned at the outset, the set objective is achieved according to the present invention in that the vibration absorber and the metal mounting plate are inserted into a device such that they lie one above the other and that the pegs of the vibration absorber are aligned with the openings in the metal mounting plate, in that extensions provided on the pegs are passed through the openings until the metal mounting plate butts against the bead of the pegs, in that the extensions are then grasped by grippers and the pegs are pulled further through the openings until the edges of the openings snap into the annular grooves of the pegs, and in that the extensions are cut off by cutting knives. Using this method, the vibrating mass can be mechanically connected to the metal mounting plate, which allows large numbers of pieces to be produced with the same quality.